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The Los Angeles Kings kicked off the summer with a couple notable transactions this past week, completing a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers to clear cap space, before re-signing defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov.
While getting the defenseman signed was a priority though, the Kings do still have a bit of work to do in the coming weeks and months.
According to CapFriendly, the team already has about $76.2 million committed for next season, leaving roughly $7.3 million available. Their tied up cap space accounts for the following 17 players of their 23-man roster.
FORWARDS (11): Anze Kopitar, Adrian Kempe, Kevin Fiala, Phillip Danault, Trevor Moore, Viktor Arvidsson, Alex Iafallo, Blake Lizotte, Quinton Byfield, Arthur Kaliyev, Carl Grundstrom
DEFENSE (5): Drew Doughty, Vladislav Gavrikov, Mikey Anderson, Matt Roy, Sean Durzi
GOALIES (1): Pheonix Copley
Assuming the Kings go with 14 forwards and seven defensemen to start the year, this leaves three more forward spots, two more spots on the blue line and one more spot in net to be filled.
For starters, we can probably expect the two remaining defense slots get filled internally, by a combination of Brandt Clarke, Tobias Bjornfot and/or Jordan Spence. Whichever defenders get the remaining spots, they’d likely be committing less than $2 million in cap space to those players. The same goes for two of the three forward spots left, which should be for a combination of Rasmus Kupari, Jaret Anderson-Dolan, and/or Zack MacEwen. With four of the six remaining spots likely to be filled for around $4 million total though, this leaves only about $3.5 million or less to re-sign both of Joonas Korpisalo and Gabriel Vilardi, for the last goaltender and forward spots.
Korpisalo is more of a priority, with the netminder set to become an unrestricted free agent in a matter of weeks. As for Gabriel Vilardi, there’s a little less urgency, given he’s still just an RFA.
I’ve already done an in-depth contract projection for Vilardi at HockeyComparables.com, which looks at what a possible extension could look like for the forward at various lengths, from as short as a single year, all the way up to a six-year contract. It can be viewed here:
ARTICLE: Projecting Gabriel Vilardi’s next contract
But with so little cap space left to sign two major free agents, it seems like Los Angeles may still potentially need to move out some salary.
I had talked about the idea of the Kings trading Viktor Arvidsson in a past article, but backed off a bit after the cap-clearing move was made. However, it looks as of now, the team still doesn’t have the room to re-sign both of their top remaining free agents.
Arvidsson isn't necessarily the only option to be moved, but he could still be the most likely. The forward has one year left on his deal at a $4.25 million cap hit, and moving the forward could result in enough space available to re-sign both of Korpisalo and Vilardi.
We'll see what happens in the coming weeks, but there's a chance the Kings may not be done making moves.
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Contract projections for all free agents on the Kings (except for Joonas Korpisalo, which has yet to be released) are available at
HockeyComparables.com. To stay up to date as contract projections for top NHL free agents are released over the next few weeks, follow
@Hockey_Comps on Twitter.
QuizMaker
OTHER ARTICLES FROM JUNE
3 players most likely to be traded by the Kings this offseason
Kings trade Cal Petersen, Sean Walker and Helge Grans to Flyers
Kings re-sign Vladislav Gavrikov 
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